Russian customs found an effective way to prevent the re-export of Turkish tomatoes through Armenia to Russia

ArmInfo. The Russian customs  together with colleagues from Armenia and Azerbaijan found an  effective way to prevent the re-export of Turkish tomatoes to Russia  through the territories of these countries, RIA Novosti reported in  an interview with Deputy Head of the Federal Customs Service (FCS) of  Russia Ruslan Davydov. According to him, since last year the problem  of determining the country of origin of the goods remained relevant,  but it was resolved. As explained by the representative of the  customs, interdepartmental working groups were established, both with  Armenian colleagues and with Azerbaijani colleagues. "Their task is  to build transparent chains of goods movement," he said.   Representatives of Rospotrebnadzor, Rosselkhoznadzor and customs, who  are members of these working groups, travel to the enterprises of  Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are exporting tomatoes to Russia. "We  look at the production capacities, agricultural areas, determine the  productivity, and as a result we get a picture of the volumes that  can be delivered." According to accompanying documents, then it is  possible to see which farm is carrying a particular cargo. And we  know that this is actually produced there goods," Davydov said. Thus,  the country in fact can not deliver more goods to Russia than it  produces.

Russia imposed an embargo on the supply of a number of products from  Turkey on January 1, 2016 in response to the attack of the Turkish  Air Force on the Russian Su-24 in Syria. Then the restrictions were  partially lifted, but the ban on the import of Turkish tomatoes is  still in effect. The Russian authorities have repeatedly noted that  tomatoes from Turkey continue to illegally enter Russia through  re-export from neighboring countries. In particular, the  Rosselkhoznadzor expressed concern about the significant increase in  deliveries to the Russian Federation of tomatoes from Belarus,  Armenia and Azerbaijan. However, the authorities of these countries  have denied such accusations.